KALAMAZOO, MI – Kalamazoo higher education leaders encouraged the business community to engage, mentor and offer internships to students during the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber of Commerce’s higher education update on Thursday.

When asked how the business community could help higher education institutions benefit the community, Wilson-Oyelaran said engaging with students is crucial, especially international and first-generation college students.

“This is the cohort, where it transforms their lives and the community, those students need networking and experiences,” Wilson-Oyelaran said. “Their father can’t help them. These are first generation students and it’s who you know, not what you know. That is where your community and internships become so important.”

Schlack said inviting students into a business gives them an opportunity to become acquainted with the work they can expect in the future and helps prevent students from spending years studying a subject they ultimately will not want a career in.

"Consider having an intern," she said. "Serve as a mentor; they need to test the waters."

Dunn asked the audience of business leaders to remember their first job interview and the people who helped them reach their various goals.

“Students need to know that you started at the same place,” Dunn said. “They look at you at this level, but you were here. We are an inclusive university and we’re proud of that. We roll up our sleeves and help people make their lives better.”

The college presidents also said that now, more than ever, they need the support of their community in government.

“We really need you all to be advocates,” Wilson-Oyelaran said. “Public institutions lost a lot of state funding and families lost their capacity to buy. For public or private institutions, the need for support is the most critical legislative issue before us. We need our communities to be advocates for higher education.”

Dunn said media coverage of the student-debt problem is putting too much blame on higher education institutions when the institutions themselves cannot control how people spend their education loans.

“We are missing a key point,” Dunn said. “We present student debt as if it’s something in our control. We have no control on what the student chooses to do with an education loan. Did they need a car? Maybe, but did they need a brand new car? We are getting beat up unfairly and the story is not being told.”

Wilson-Oyelaran compared the $26,000 average student debt that some Kalamazoo College students graduate to a new Ford Focus.

“That Focus depreciates the minute you drive out of the dealer,” she said. “But that degree continues to appreciate over time. This is a serious issue.”